pic: Team 221 LLC. - Wild Swerve Module

[Lil' Lavery]

Many of my points were said before I got a chance to say them, but I'll expand upon a few of them.

To imply that teams do not learn when using COTS items is simply silly, and wrong. It almost strikes me at those who criticize these parts seem to have no experience using them (or similar products). It isn't simply, "hey, put that there" and have the robot magically work. There is still a great deal of engineering design that goes into the process. This is no more of a complete swerve drive than an AndyMark mecanum wheel and kit shifter is a complete mecanum drive.
COTS items are frequently used in real world engineering solutions, and as Al just said above me, there's no need to reinvent the wheel each and every time. Yes, there are certain lessons you gain when you build something from scratch that you won't get here, but the same applies in reverse.
It is truly rare that any pre-engineered solution will exactly fit your specifics and requirements precisely. You may be able to improve on them, lower their weights, or have to add protection to the components in your design. You may have to design a suspension for this drive for it to be viable in a specific game. You may have to adjust ratios to fit your strategy (and depending on the ratios you need, you may have to engineer and construct a whole new gear housing). You may feel a different motor is the ideal drive motor for your design.
You get into a whole new set of engineering lessons and design thinking when you try to improve and understand a design that someone else created. While many have cited certain designs as "influential" to their own, and some may have looked at very detail pictures, had the designed explained to them extensively, or even dug through the CAD files. But it's a whole new ballgame when you get to actually have a physical copy of the module in front of you to work with and attempt to improve (or find the flaws in it that don't fit your design requirements).
And who says that this has to be used exclusively on competition robots? This could very easily be a great prototyping tool (for either pre-season or early build) to help teams start their software training and experimentation early (as well as start training drivers for the potentially complex task of driving a swerve-driven robot). It can be great for building a sweet demo bot.
And the fundamental argument that this is somehow against the spirit of FIRST because of the allegations that it hurts the learning process are, in themselves, flawed. Learning is an awesome and powerful bi-product of FIRST, but it is NOT the primary goal. Inspiration to become a scientist/engineer and the creation of a culture that values those professionals is the primary function of FIRST. This doesn't hinder that.